Lifesigns (episode)
The Doctor falls in love with a Vidiian patient whose life he saved. Summary Teaser Lieutenant jg Tom Paris arrives late to his duty shift on the bridge and provides several obviously false excuses. Commander Chakotay is irritated by Paris' tardiness and doesn't believe any of his excuses, informally reprimanding him for being late for the third time in a week. Before anything more can happen, Lt. Tuvok announces that the has received a subspace distress call from a small, unarmed spacecraft. The weak lifesigns aboard the vessel indicate a Vidiian female. Captain Kathryn Janeway orders Ensign Harry Kim to respond to the hail but the distressed ship does not respond. Because there are no other Vidiian ships in the sector, Janeway overrules Paris' suggestion that they may be falling into a trap and decides to have the woman beamed directly into sickbay. In sickbay, Kes and The Doctor find an extremely complex bioneural implant in the Vidiian's parietal lobe. The Doctor's scans find that the device is storing her synaptic patterns and processing her neuroelectric impulses: essentially, she has a cortical stimulator built into her body. While the device appears to be functioning normally, the nerve cells to which it connects are dying, severely reducing its function. To avoid losing their patient, The Doctor decides to transfer the synaptic patterns stored in the device into the holobuffer. He then creates, piece by piece, a holographic body for her. Act One Chakotay reports that the ship's navigational logs indicate that the patient was en route to a remote Vidiian colony about ten light years from Voyager s present location. He then turns the conversation to the behavior of Paris. Although crew discipline is his responsibility as first officer, he wishes to discuss the problem with Janeway before taking action. While she shares his concerns, Janeway leaves Chakotay in charge of disciplining Paris. As the patient's synaptic patterns stabilize, The Doctor prepares to transfer her mind into the holographic body he has created for her while her physical body is in stasis. When she wakes up, The Doctor explains the procedure and gives her a mirror so she can see her healthy-looking self. The patient starts crying for joy, overwhelmed at the idea of seeing herself healthy once more. She reveals that she was first diagnosed with the Phage at seven years old and started receiving replacement tissue and organs shortly afterward. She is also fascinated by the fact that The Doctor is a hologram himself. She introduces herself as Denara Pel, a hematologist who had been helping treat an outbreak of the Phage on Fina Prime and was on the way back to her home colony when her disease worsened. They both begin working on healing Pel's body, as her mind cannot survive in the computer for more than a week. Pel sees her physical body on the biobed and becomes briefly distracted before helping The Doctor. Act Two The Doctor discusses with Lt. jg B'Elanna Torres his plans to extract a segment of her parietal lobe to transplant into Pel. Because her Klingon DNA is resistant to the Phage and compatible with Vidiian DNA, she is a perfect donor. However, Torres has reservations about the procedure after what the Vidiians had done to her previously. He begs her to reconsider and while they are arguing, Pel enters, expressing her sympathy for Torres and what she went through. She asks for Torres' understanding, explaining that her species has been dying of the Phage for centuries and that in their quest to find a cure, their scientists and politicians have forgotten to have compassion for the people they seek help from. However, she is willing to accept her fate should Torres choose not to undergo the procedure. Taken aback, Torres chooses to help Pel. After they perform the surgery, The Doctor realizes that now all they have to do is wait a few days to see whether the procedure was successful. He suggests shutting Pel's program down temporarily, as that would slow the degradation of her neural pathways in Voyager s computer. Pel, however, is too energetic to want to be shut down: she wants to tour the ship. Since that is not an option, The Doctor takes her to Chez Sandrine on the holodeck instead. There, they engage in conversation and at some point, The Doctor manages to make her laugh. Pel tells him how much she appreciates his sense of humor, especially because she hasn't had anything to laugh about in a very long time. She then chooses to name The Doctor "Shmullus" after her uncle, who also used to make her laugh. The pair return to sickbay and experience a few awkward moments of silence, before The Doctor wishes her good night and reluctantly deactivates her program. Act Three In the mess hall, Chakotay approaches Paris and asks if anything is bothering him, pointing out his tardiness and general lack of enthusiasm on the job lately. Paris laughs mockingly at Chakotay's sudden concern for his feelings, saying that his problem is in fact Chakotay himself. He expresses his frustration over Chakotay's unwillingness to let him take initiative and be creative once in a while. He states that as a matter of fact he is not the only one who has a problem with how Chakotay runs things and sardonically asks to be excused. As he leaves, everyone in the mess hall – including Michael Jonas – watches him. Lorrum, Jonas' Kazon-Nistrim contact onboard Culluh's ship, is very interested to hear of the unrest among the Voyager crew. He praises Jonas and then orders him to sabotage Voyager s warp coils. However, Jonas refuses to damage Voyager in anyway and tells Lorrum that Seska would need to contact him if Culluh has a problem with that. In sickbay, The Doctor is busy running a level 2 self-diagnostic on himself to assess his situation since Pel came aboard. While he thinks there is a malfunction in his tactile acuity subroutine, Kes suggests that perhaps he might be attracted to Pel and that he in fact should not try to fix anything. The Doctor thinks this is impossible, as he isn't programmed to handle romance, but Kes points out that since his programming is adaptive, everything - including romantic feelings - are possible. Nervous about what is happening to him, The Doctor describes what he feels and experiences around Pel and says that he doesn't want his program to adapt in that manner right now. He finds his thoughts consumed by her in her absence and unsettled in her presence: quite disconcerting feelings for one so used to being in total control. After a few moments of deliberation, he asks Kes how to go about exploring a romantic relationship. Kes recommends forthrightness and simply telling Pel how he feels. While performing maintenance surgery on Pel's body, The Doctor decides to take Kes' advice to heart and blurts out to Pel, quite as-a-matter-of-factly, of his attraction to her and his desire to enter a romantic relationship. Pel and Kes are both dumbstruck at The Doctor's approach. Pel is speechless and tells him that she'd prefer to keep their relationship professional. In Sandrine's, a very depressed Doctor runs into Paris and decides to ask him for advice on how to recover from romantic rejection, citing doctor-patient confidentiality when Paris pries for details. Paris recalls a particularly bad breakup he endured in his first year at Starfleet Academy - which almost cost him his grade in Stellar cartography. But, he reassures The Doctor that while the first love is always the hardest to get over, things tend to get better over time. However, much to The Doctor's horror, Paris reveals that you actually never completely get over someone you loved and that even years later the most trivial things can remind you of that person and make you feel just as bad and torn up inside as the day they said they never wanted to see you again. Noticing the distressed look on The Doctor's face, Paris finally realizes that The Doctor is speaking about himself and decides to give him concrete advice. After finding out a little more about the situation, Paris tells The Doctor that his approach probably scared Pel off altogether and suggests that he take her someplace special. The Doctor expresses reservations about what to do but Paris has an idea. Meanwhile, in sickbay, Pel is sitting on a biobed nervously waiting for The Doctor. While waiting, she speaks with Kes about her feelings for The Doctor and reveals that the awkwardness and bluntness with which The Doctor confessed his feelings for her was the reason she did not admit to her feelings for him. Act Four The Doctor waits for Pel in a holographic 1957 Chevrolet convertible on an equally holographic Mars. After a few awkward moments and explanations, he gives her a bouquet of red roses, a box of chocolates and a teddy bear and turns on the car's radio. He offers to try dancing, as he's just downloaded the subroutine that would allow him to do so, but she prefers just sitting for a while and stargazing. The Doctor points out Earth and several other astronomical highlights in the sky. They kiss and embrace facing the stars. On the bridge, Paris is late again. Chakotay says it's all right, as they don't need him. He tells him that Grimes will take Paris' place at conn for the shift and every shift thereafter until Paris starts taking his job more seriously. Captain Janeway supports the decision all the way but stays quiet. As Chakotay starts guiding him off the bridge, Paris shoves him roughly to the floor and Janeway has Lt. Tuvok escort Paris to the brig. Seska contacts Jonas in his quarters to give him advice on how to implement his sabotage of the warp coils. Because she doesn't want to raise her child with the Kazon, she fully intends to take Voyager and that means having Jonas sabotage it. She begins to detail the plan, saying that they will meet Voyager at a planet called Hemikek IV. Meanwhile, The Doctor is feeling much more comfortable around Pel and hopes their relationship will continue after they perform the synaptic transfer. However, before the procedure begins, they discover that Pel's brain is rejecting the tissue graft and that they cannot continue the transfer. Act Five The Doctor finds elevated levels of nytoxinol in Pel's body. When he finds the hypospray with which Pel was injected to contain cervaline as it was supposed to, he concludes that somebody must have deliberately poisoned Pel. Before he can call for Tuvok however, Pel reveals that she herself administered the nytoxinol, knowing it would be fatal. She states that she does not wish to be in that body again. She tells him that she would prefer to live a few healthy days with The Doctor, knowing they would be her last, than to spend the rest of her natural life in her Phage-infected body. She is sick of prolonging people's suffering, which is all she can do and all she feels The Doctor is doing for her by making her go through with the transfer. She says in her adult life before Voyager, she was "just a disease" but has become more than that thanks to him. She fears that he will stop loving her when she is sick again. But The Doctor argues that he would love her, no matter what her condition was. Pel seems convinced and at peace and they meet in Sandrine's. As she emerges from the shadows, she reveals herself back in her real, non-holographic body, and she and The Doctor embrace for a final waltz before she leaves for her home. Log Entries *''Chief Medical Officer's log, supplemental. Test results indicate that the holographic body is functioning normally. The patient's synaptic patterns appear to be stable, so I'm now ready to begin transferring her cognitive and motor processes. '' *''Doctor's personal log, stardate 49504.3. Inaugural entry. Kes and Mister Paris have conspired to get Denara and me alone together in a place Paris considers romantic. I've never felt more... uneasy. '' *''Doctor's personal log, stardate 49507.2.The more time I spend with Denara, the more my programming continues to adapt. I look forward to perfecting my romantic skills once we've completed the synaptic transfer. '' Memorable Quotes "I never thought I'd see myself again." :- Denara Pel "You're a computer simulation?" "An extremely sophisticated computer simulation." :- Denara Pel and The Doctor "Sometimes I think my people are so focused on trying to save lives, we don't know how to live anymore." :- Denara Pel "Romance is not a malfunction." :- Kes "Where are we exactly?" "On a planet called Mars inside a primitive, land-based vehicle. It's called a '57 Chevy. Mr. Paris is quite an automobile aficionado; this is his program." "What is it that we're supposed to be doing?" "I believe it's called... parking." :- Denara Pel and Dr. "Shmullus" "By the way, Denara, I've been meaning to tell you..." "Yes?" "I'm romantically attracted to you and wanted to know if you felt the same way." :- The Doctor and Denara Pel "This exact procedure was developed by Dr. Leonard McCoy in the year 2253. I'm equipped with the collective medical knowledge of more than 3000 cultures." :- The Doctor to Denara Pel "If you've got a problem, I'd like to know what it is." "Yeah, I've got a problem, my problem is ''you." : - '''Chakotay' and Tom Paris "Mr. Paris, I assume you've had a great deal of experience being rejected by women." "Thanks a lot, Doc." :- The Doctor and Tom Paris "Get your hands off me!" : - Tom Paris, to Chakotay "I have no intention of raising my child on a Kazon ship! One way or another, I am going to take ''Voyager, so you can either help me or suffer along with Janeway and the others!" :- '''Seska' "Denara, please... don't die." :- The Doctor Background Information *The title of this episode is apparently a double-entendre, referencing both the medical procedure used on Pel, and the fact that The Doctor finally recognizes his own life. *The writing staff of Star Trek: Voyager were originally unsure of what direction to take this episode's script. "There was an enormous amount of contention about that script," executive producer Jeri Taylor later recalled. "Everybody had a different idea about what to do with it. Ken [Biller] wrote one draft that he felt very strongly about, and Michael [Piller] and I really felt it should go a different way, and he rewrote it and ultimately felt much better about it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) *One of the areas of uncertainty was how to conclude the story. "The ending was changed I don't know how many times," Jeri Taylor admitted. "We were trying to find something that felt dramatically satisfying yet sent out the kind of message that we wanted to be sending, that would be honest and yet not depressing. If you get into people dying, it's a very, very tricky area. There was an ending in which she opted to stay as a holographic character and die within days because she'd rather have lived like that, whole and beautiful, and only have a few more days, than go back to her diseased body. But we really felt that would be an irresponsible message to send. Ultimately, I think the message we were sending was that even people who are ill deserve to be loved and not to be judged on the basis of their illness." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) *The moral that actor Robert Picardo took from the story was less about illness and more about external beauty. Of The Doctor's relationship with Denara Pel, Picardo said, "He falls in love with the real her, the horrifyingly deformed her, not this beautiful, radiant holographic being that is trapped inside her. So there are wonderful analogies for life in The Doctor's discoveries - in that particular case, learning to love the inner person and not to be distracted in love by someone's physical exterior." (VOY Season 2 DVD) *Jeri Taylor ultimately thought this episode was let down by the moments involving the plot threads of a traitor (Michael Jonas) aboard Voyager and Paris continuing his indiscipline (the latter having started in ). These continuing plot threads (which Jeri Taylor was deeply concerned about, generally) would join and be resolved in the next episode, , forming a connected story arc. Speaking of this episode, Taylor said, "That's the one that would have been classic if it didn't have those stupid scenes with Paris in it. It would have been one of those little jewels, but it will be forever tainted." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) She similarly remarked, " Lifesigns', which I think might have emerged as one of those little classics, is forever sullied by the presence of some scenes that are just odd and out of place, and if you simply look at that episode alone, it's like what's going on here? It just poisoned that episode." (Star Trek Monthly issue 18) * However, this subplot was not one that director Cliff Bole, concentrating more on The Doctor's storyline. "That whole subplot led to two or three other stories," Bole later observed. "I was never really on top of it, because they were writing and developing it as we went. I was more concerned with the A-story." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15) * According to Cliff Bole, the plot about The Doctor's romance with Denara Pel was written as a way to develop the former character and to put him in new environments, such as on Mars. "The A-story ... was a time for Robert Picardo to get away from the confines of Sickbay," Bole stated. "His character was growing stale; he couldn't do anything or go anywhere. He is such a competent actor." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15) *Before playing Danara Pel in this episode, actress Susan Diol appeared as Carmen Davila in . She was cast for this episode following a difficult casting process. Cliff Bole explained, "We had trouble finding the right person to play Denara. Then, we got Susan, and she was great." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #15) *Visual effects were utilized in the sequence wherein The Doctor holographically recreates Denara Pel's appearance in such a way as to essentially remove the physical effects of the Phage. Visual effects producer Dan Curry recalled, "In 'Lifesigns,' we had to construct layers of a body, and superimpose those as The Doctor was building the Vidiian woman as she would have looked had she not been afflicted with the Phage. So we had computer-generated, digital, 3D models of those various stages and then just did an effective morphing from one to the other to create the illusion that she was being holographically constructed on The Doctor's table there. There's stock software out there of three-dimensional body parts that can be taken apart, and I think they're usually for educational purposes but we use a lot of that stuff. In another life, I used to do biomedical illustrations so sometimes, if we have something specific like that, I'll just paint it." (Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2, VOY Season 2 DVD special features) *Another sequence for which visual effects were required was the one in which The Doctor and Denara Pel stargaze from a convertible on Mars. Regarding this scene, Dan Curry explained, "The shot consists of a crane shot on set, done with a partial set. And the real set ends; there's like a little berm around where the car is parked. And then beyond that, we put a piece of blue screen, so that we could isolate the real set from where we were gonna add new material. Part of the background image I did in Photoshop and then part of it was I composited, in Photoshop, elements of freehand drawn structures and miniature structures. And some of the miniature structures were things that we use on the set a lot for different full-size, high-tech-looking objects. But I had noticed one that kind of looked like a building, so we put diffusion material inside this plastic thing ... and used that for a large housing complex that you see in the distance, in that shot." (Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2, VOY Season 2 DVD special features) *In the original broadcast version of this episode, the song playing on the radio while The Doctor and Pel are in the holographic simulation of Mars is "I Only Have Eyes for You". Although originally written in 1934 by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, the version used is a 1959 recording by The Flamingos. On the DVDs, the song "My Prayer" is used instead. It was originally copyrighted in 1939, written by George Boulanger and Jimmy Kennedy. *The costume worn by Susan Diol in this episode was later reused by actress Lise Simms (as Annorax's wife) in the fourth season episode and was subsequently sold off on the ''It's a Wrap!'' sale and auction on eBay. Continuity *This is the first and only episode in which we see what a healthy Vidiian looks like. *The Doctor mentions a procedure by Leonard McCoy as he is discussing the neural implant on Pel's body with Pel. *This episode references experiments that are done on B'Elanna Torres in the first season episode . *When making an excuse for being late to his shift, Paris jokes that he thinks he may have missed his calling in medicine. This foreshadows his later duty as assistant to The Doctor, as well as referencing Paris' earlier assignment as field medic prior to Kes taking that role. * This episode seems to disregard a romance that The Doctor has earlier in the series, with Freya in the first season episode . * After being introduced in this episode, the character of Denara Pel appears in the later second season episode . Although this episode's script spells her name as "Denara", the script of "Resolutions" spells her name as "Danara" (a spelling that is also used in the official Star Trek Encyclopedia). (Star Trek: Voyager Companion) * This is one of the few episodes where The Doctor is given a name. In this instance, Denara Pel gives him her uncle's name, Shmullus, because he used to make her laugh. She also uses that name to refer to The Doctor in "Resolutions". * This episode was produced after and has Stardates that are numerically after a Stardate in that episode. However, this episode is otherwise clearly set before "Investigations" and was duly aired before it. Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 2.8, . *As part of the VOY Season 2 DVD collection. Links and References Main Cast *Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway *Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay *Roxann Dawson as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres *Jennifer Lien as Kes *Robert Duncan McNeill as Lieutenant Tom Paris *Ethan Phillips as Neelix *Robert Picardo as The Doctor *Tim Russ as Lieutenant Tuvok *Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim Guest Stars *Susan Diol as Denara Pel *Raphael Sbarge as Michael Jonas *Martha Hackett as Seska *Michael Spound as Lorrum Co-Star *Rick Gianasi as a Gigolo Uncredited Co-Stars *Tarik Ergin as Ayala *Kerry Hoyt as Grimes *Bob Moscagno as an accordion player *John Tampoya as Kashimuro Nozawa *Unknown actor as Ensign Murphy References 1957; 2253; appendectomy; automobile; axonal pathway; basal ganglia; bio-neural circuitry; brain; cardiovascular system; cerebellum; cerebral cortex; cervaline; Chevy; constellation; compound fracture; Crabtree, Susie; Culluh; Cygnus; delta band frequency; DNA; Doctor Alpha; Earth; EMH; emission nebula; endocrinology; Fina Prime; Foster; gigaquad; Greek; Greek mythology; hematology (hematologist); Hemikek IV; Hercules; Hercules (constellation); hiccup; Hippocrates; hives; holoemitter; hologram; humor; inaprovaline; Klingon; lectrazine; level 2 self diagnostic; Kazon-Nistrim; magnetic constrictor; Maje; Mala; Mars; Martian colonies; McCoy, Leonard; medicine; medical practitioner; My Prayer; nanofiber; neural tissue; neuralyte probe; neuro-cortical stimulator; nytoxinol; parietal lobe; phage; Platters, The; Pleiades Cluster; rose; Shmullus; Starfleet Academy; Stellar Cartography; suicide; synaptic pattern; submicron suture; tactile acuity subroutine; teddy bear; terahertz; tetrahertz; Utopia Planitia; verterium cortenide; Vidiian; Vidiian program Alpha; waltz; warp coil; Wildman, Samantha; Zimmerman, Lewis |next= }} de:Lebensanzeichen es:Lifesigns fr:Lifesigns nl:Lifesigns Category:VOY episodes